CMF Ch 14
CMF Ch 14 Group 1 I. Modern Journalism in the Information Age A. What Is News? 1. Modern journalists are often storytellers in the modern media. Those reporting the news prefer to look at themselves as information gatherers, likely because it sounds much more serious than ‘storyteller’. 2. Newsworthiness has evolved over the years. The timeliness of a story and the proximity to readers is key, as it needs to be something that they will care to read. 3. In order to make the news more interesting, the newsmakers will use several tools to keep readers coming back for more. i. Stories will normally have an aspect of conflict in them. Opposing views are shown, a great example of this is on a show like “Pardon the Interruption”, where current news stories are discussed and debated. Allowing the viewer to take sides increases the emotional investment they have with the programming. ii. Prominent individuals are often covered, as they shape the community and journalists have a responsibility for keeping an eye on them. iii. News will often break down stories down to the individual level (human interest piece), allowing the viewer to relate a national issue down to an individual level. iv. Stories are often useful and will show consequences. Showing the audience how certain things are useful and how crimes and negative acts have consequences (stupid criminal story) is a popular type of story that is often a staple of evening news. v. Audiences also like to see things outside of the ordinary, so showing things that are out of the norm is often a big draw. The most famous (infamous?) example of this type of journalism is probably the water skiing squirrel. B. Values in American Journalism 1. Serious journalists strive to be neutral. Some tools that they will employ to hide bias are carefully citing sources, using few adjectives and adverbs, and removing themselves from the situation by using a third person point of view. 2. Neutrality isn’t completely based in journalistic integrity. The desire to reach the greatest number of readers encouraged publications to abandon their biases since those biases often alienated a large portion of the audience. 3. Many stories are presented to publications, but only some are selected to be stories. Certain values contribute to the decision of what stories are going to be run. i. We often look at international news stories as Americans who will inevitably compare the foreign countries to how they compare to the USA. This inside-looking-out view is referred to as ethnocentrism. ii. Journalists tend to glorify businesses as doing something noble and not merely trying to maximize profits. This leads them to sometimes overlooking irresponsible business practices. This dangerous practice is labeled responsible capitalism. iii. There has long been a feeling amongst media that small town values are superior. This glorification of the rural and the distrust of the urban is small-town pastoralism. iv. Journalists are often drawn to the field of journalism because they are individualistic and believe that through hard work the individual can succeed. This value that influences what we see in media is individualism, and is seen as the most prominent value that impacts the stories we see on our screen and in print. 4. Although most serious journalists value neutralism, networks that favor left or right winged agendas undermine this neutrality. Networks such as Fox News and CNN value the concept of conflict more than simply stating the facts. II. Ethics and the News Media A. Ethical Predicaments 1. Journalists have at times deceived others to get a story. By dressing up and posing as something other than a journalist these members of the media have operated in a moral gray area. There is a debate whether if these deceptions are morally correct. Most purists feel that the results of these types of stories don’t justify the deception. 2. In today’s technological environment the right to privacy is becoming hard to uphold. Information is much easier to come across with social networking, satellite imagery, and digital media. The extent to how far journalists can invade privacy is a hot debate. 3. Journalists strive to stay out of situations where they would have a conflict of interest. Situations where they can accept bribes, report on something they are personally tied to, or be tempted to not report the truth will put the reporter in a tight spot. Group 2 I. Resolving Ethical Problems A. Aristotle, Kant, Bentham, and Mill i. Aristotle "golden mean". Finding a balance between lacking and obssesive. ii. Immanuel Kant- "golden rule" Treat others how you would want to be treated. iii. Bentham and Mill- "the greatest good for the greatest number" A. Developing Ethical Policy i. Ethical decision steps help to figure out if they should follow the golden mean, or golden rule. ii. Six steps: 1.Organize thoughts 2. Find the main point 3. Pinpointing whom, Intents, What they compete for 4. Studying moral representations 5. Presenting tactics and choices 6. Reaching a conclusion II. Reporting Rituals and the Legacy of Print Journalism A. Focusing on the Present i. focuses on what is going on now ii. out with the old in with the new 1. Getting a Good Story i. If while researching a story "find the story". Do not lie or possibly neglect someone's safety, like Janet Cooke did for her story even though it turned out to be a fake. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bradlee/background_cooke.html 2. Getting a Story First i. A big part of the job is getting the story before others get the story and make sure to be careful about certain assumptions that could end up being wrong. 1. 'Herd journalism'-''' when a reporter takes their job to an extreme that constitutes others rights of privacy. Following or stalking a celebrity at their home in herds, relying heavily on personal issues, and getting the wrong story. B. Relying on Experts i. finding expert information from others mostly caucassion and male ii. Viewers may not have felt included with the dominating white experts, and men are more of a reliable source found by FAIR. iii. Politics are more media oriented and have more of a direction of influencing the public with journalists and entertainers. C. Balancing Story Conflict i. A journalist telling both sides to a story without influencing the story with their own views, and if not then finding the middle ground. 1. '' ''' ''Balance- seeing all sides to the issue and not favoring just the one D. Acting as Adversaries i. The biggest fulfillment can come from a "gotcha story." This is where they find the culprit to a bad story.. ii.Searching for what politicians are keeping from them by asking a series of questions or "gotcha" questions. iii. Questions used by journalists that keep the conversation going, and fair questions have the best results to becoming publicly awarded. Author:Lee Banville(copyright 1996-2013)" The Janet Cooke Case" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bradlee/background_cooke.html Angela Jasinski plagiarism. Journalism and the Age of Television i. The rules and rituals governing American journalism began in the 1950s. Commonly favored as “the first and definitive” news documentary on American television,See It Now sought “to report in depth to tell and show the American audience what was happening in the world using film as a narrative tool a. Differences between Print and TV News i. TV news reporters share many values, beliefs, and conventions with their print counterparts, television has transformed journalism in a number of significant ways 1. First, broadcast news is often driven by its technology, basically no matter where a news reporter is if they don’t make it in time for the interview on a certain news time they will cover whatever is available or holding them up instead. In the book they gave the example of a reporter being suck in the airport because of a delayed flight so instead they covered the interview on delayed flights. (pg. 503) 2. Second, although print editors must cut stories to fit a physical space around the slots assigned for ads, TV news directors have to time stories to fit news in between commercials. 3. Third, whereas modern print journalists are expected to be detached, TV news derives its credibility from live, on-the-spot reporting; believable imagery; and viewers’ trust in the reporters and anchors who read the news ' ' b. Pretty-Face and Happy-Talk Culture i. A generation of national news consultants sets the agenda for what local reporters should cover, as well as how they should look. News doctors ii. Another news strategy favored by news consultants has been happy talk – the adlibbed or scripted banter that goes on among local news anchors, reporters, meteorologists, and sports reporters before and after news reports. c. Sound Bitten i. Beginning in the 1980s, the term sound bite became part of the public lexicon ii. A sound bite is the part of a broadcast news report in which an expert, celebrity, victim, or person-on-the-street responds in an interview to some aspect of an event or issue d. Pundits, “Talking Heads,” and Politics i. The transformation of TV news by cable with the arrival of CNN in 1980 led to dramatic changes in TV news delivery at the national level. ii. Today 24/7 news cycles means that we can get TV news anytime, day or night, and constant new content has led to major changes in what is considered news. e. Convergence Enhances and Changes Journalism i. Mainstream print and TV reporters and editors, online news has added new dimensions to journalism. ii. Both Print and TV news can continually update breaking stories online, and many reporters now post their online stories first and then work on traditional versions. iii. However online news comes with a special set of problems 1. Reporters, can do e-mail interviews rather than leaving the office to question a subject in person, but many editors discourage this practice because they think relying on e-mail gives interviewees the chance to control and shape their answers. 2. Another problem is wide-ranging resources of the Internet. This includes access to versions of stories from other papers or broadcast stations. The information available on the Internet has made it all too easy for journalist to intentionally copy other journalists’ work. f. The Power of Visual Language i. The shift from a print-dominated culture to an electronic-digital culture requires that we look carefully at differences among various approaches to journalism. 1. The visual language of TV news and the Internet often captures events more powerfully than words. Over the past fifty years, television news has dramatized America’s key events. 2. TV images are also embedded in the collective memory of many Americans such as a. The Kennedy and King assassinations in the 1960s b. The turmoil of Watergate in the 1970s Group 4 I. I. Alternative Models: Public Journalism and “Fake” News A. Public Journalism- a movement, a more interactive form of media used between the public and the news source. Turning public into conversational partners. Started in the 1980’s and 1990’s a. Started in 1987 in Columbus Georgia. A public discussion among towns people about a depressed economy. b. Criticisms include the wearying of four reporting trademarks i. Editorial control ii. Credibility iii. Balance iv. Diverse views http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PublicJ Panelists discussed whether public, or civic, journalism violates the notion of objective journalism and the need for less detached, more involved, journalism. B. “Fake” News- type of satire news reporting using what might seem truthful a. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart b. The Colbert Report II. Democracy and Reimagining Journalism’s Role Democracy is dependent on journalism. Everyone have access to news. A. Social Responsibility – act of reporters not reporting dishonest news. a. First to talk about it - ''James Agee ''– 1930’s journalist b. Makes the reader no less involved than reporters c. Better news http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp B. Deliberative Democracy a. Reporters are growing further away from the public they write to i. Rising salaries ii. Prestige iii. Formal education b. New For od deliberation for the public and how news is used